They stopped the car at the head of the game trail and made their way down to the place where they had last seen the elephants. The moon was sailing across the sky, remote and unforgiving. When they reached the killing ground, Sarah knelt down and wept. The grand old dame lay on her side, a bullet wound through her forehead, her eyes filmed but still open in reproach, tracks like tears on the sides of her face. There were raw, open and bloody wounds where her tusks had been, already infested with ants and other burrowing creatures. Near her lay Jacintha, a younger female. Her tusks had also been gouged out, and her carcass left to rot.

Sarah reached out to touch the wrinkled skin. Then she heard a noise, the loud snapping of branches coming from behind her. Erope made an urgent sign, and she rose and followed him into thick bush at the edge of the clearing. In the bright beam of the moon’s searchlight she watched, spellbound, as the remaining members of the family group materialised like ghosts out of the dense scrub. They gathered around their fallen comrades and tried to raise them up, digging under the bodies with their tusks, pushing with their feet. When it became clear that the two were dead, they stood quietly to one side, mammoth guards of honour, immovable and silent mourners on the field of battle. Sarah and Erope crouched in the thicket, trapped in the cramped space where they had hidden as the elephants approached. The night grew chilly, but they did not stir. This was no time to test the elephants’ acceptance of them. If they were discovered, they could be trampled in seconds. The wind would not be in their favour if they attempted an escape. They sat there, cold and stiff, occasionally dozing, watching the silent ritual with awe and sadness. During the long hours of darkness hyenas came, and jackals, attracted by the smell of blood. But the guard of elephants gathered in a solid phalanx and drove the scavengers away. No creature was willing to challenge them. Towards dawn, the two oldest females went into the scrub. They began to pull down branches, and uproot small bushes and trees, carrying them to the place where their dead lay, and spreading them across the bodies like a shroud. Then they began to kick dust and small stones, tufts of grass and sods of earth, building them up over their companions until they were covered. Even the youngest members of the herd joined in the process, and by the time the sun rose the two dead elephants had almost disappeared. In their place were two mounds.